Ténèbres Angélique
by Le Fez-Wearing Husky
Summary: December: the city of London is ablaze with festive light. But in one corner, seemingly detached from the bustling city, a darkness lies enshrouded, awaiting discovery… (One-shot. AU. Human! France x Fallen Angel! England. FrUK and stuff. Enjoy.)


**Okay, so, once again, I started with an entirely random idea and ended up with this thing. To give you a bit of background, the part of London where I go to sixth form college is known as Angel, and the Tube station that I pass on my way there every day is also called Angel. My mind simply couldn't resist turning it into a Hetalia reference, it seems. And so this FrUK one-shot was born.**

 **Anyway, I won't say too much about it just yet, as I have a strict no-spoiler policy.**

 **I will give you some trigger warnings, though: this story is rated T, mainly due to swearing (this is a fanfiction wherein England features prominently, what do you expect?), and I should also warn you that there are some references to religion, so just to tell you that if you're easily offended by that sort of thing then you should probably look away now.**

 **Anyway, I very much hope you enjoy this and I'd love to hear feedback! Positive, critical, any kind is fine (unless it's a flamer, but hey, that kinda goes without saying).**

* * *

Darkness in London was never _true_ darkness. It was always diluted by some sort of lighting, whether accidental or arranged. And this was especially true for Christmas time.

The decorations came in all shades of kitsch. Luminous, undulating chameleon walls; helical garlands of blueberry illumination constricting every lamppost. Glowing snowflakes on every tree, perhaps to atone for the lack of actual snow that the city had received in recent years.

Francis Bonnefoy paid this all little heed. This was not his first time visiting London, nor would a scene in Paris be extremely different. He was used to the view of the nocturnal Eiffel Tower from his flat window, as it rose from the skyline sparkling like an ostentatious galactic beacon.

Francis had visited London in the past for many reasons. He never described himself as a tourist, although he did often partake in some very typical tourist activities; namely spending lots of money and getting wasted. Often simultaneously.

In this instance he had visited with some friends, all of whom he had lost to the city's various tourist traps and pubs. He didn't mind too much. There was no way he was ever going to risk a single gulp of those inferior British brews.

 _At least it's not too difficult here to find a decent sandwich,_ he mused as he tore another bite off his Hoisin Duck wrap. London was surprisingly full to the brim with decent French cafés that were very much to Francis's taste. There was at least one for every pub, or perhaps even more – a distribution that was even more so to Francis's taste.

His feet navigated the pavement unconsciously. He crossed roads, blithely ignoring the beeps of disgruntled motorists.

He then suddenly stopped, the last bite of his wrap hanging momentarily from his mouth.

He swallowed and scrunched up the wrapper.

He sighed, the exhale jetting forth in a burst of chilly condensation.

For the first time in a long while, he considered something.

Why was it that he was so inexplicably attached to this city?

He could formulate no rational reason for it. Why London? Coming here often felt like a sort of escapism, but from what? An artistic break? But there was nothing here to inspire him any more than there was in Paris.

Yet there was definitely _something._

He could hear it whispering in the evening breeze, feel it sliding through the shadows. It was a familiar scent; the phenomenon known in France as _l'amour._

Love.

Though that notion may sound no less than incredibly cheesy to most people, to Francis, who was a shameless romantic and the self-proclaimed "love doctor" of his friend group, it was perfectly acceptable.

He chuckled through the wintry air. He had no idea what that meant or how he knew it, but did he really need to? Love rarely made sense, and he knew that better than most.

Francis glanced upwards. An Underground station loomed before him, the shadows within sharp and ravenous. He could see that the reception area was oddly drenched in gloom and almost devoid of people.

A tingle travelled down the Frenchman's spine, though it was not of fear. He walked in with only sheer intrigue coursing through his veins.

What kind of love was this? It felt entirely unconventional and refreshingly unfamiliar. It had the wavelength of unknowability.

But as France's foremost expert on matters of romance, Francis simply had to find out what it was.

One clatter of a ticket gate later and he was travelling in a diagonal downward, perched anticipatedly on the escalator, listening to the relentless hum of the machines echo eerily down the cylindrical corridor.

Once he reached the platform level, he stopped, glanced around. Something was different here, though not entirely apparent. Something about those marble-patterned bricks that just…

 _"_ _This is Angel,"_ came the electronic drone of the train to his left. Not fifteen seconds later, as Francis stood pondering, staring fixatedly at architecture he would usually dismiss as ugly and tasteless, the train's computerised announcer piped up again: _"This is a Northern line train to Morden via Bank."_

 _Angel… northern…_ The two words bumped around in Francis's mind, searching for some sort of memory to collide with, as the train streaked out of the station amid an impossibly echoing hum. The walls around him seemed to whisper back and forth. Relaying clues.

"Angel…" Francis muttered, slowly repeating every syllable of the word, first in English and then again in French. _"L'ange…"_

Suddenly, the wall opposite Francis undulated and distorted, the veined bricks and cement transmuting into something wholly surreal and out of place.

A set of double doors, each extravagantly carved with the feathery detailed likeness of an angelic wing. Both wings were seven feet high, half-unfurled, emerging embossed from the black wood as though about to take flight. And yet they were frozen in that arcanely dark wood, constrained, destined never to fly.

As Francis stared, marvelling, at this impossible door, a woman breezed past him from behind and strode briskly rightwards to the Northbound platform. She didn't even bat an eyelid at the oddity that had appeared so suddenly in the wall.

 _Don't tell me…_ A small smirk stretched on Francis's face. _Only I can see this door, right?_

In that instant, he was sure of it.

That door was an invitation.

Grin broadening, Francis strode excitedly to the door. His palms connected with the dark panels, and pushed with full force. _I accept!_

Behind the door lay only darkness.

Wait – not _only_ darkness.

There was something else, definitely. Francis simply couldn't see it.

The tenebrosity curled around the Frenchman as he entered. It was something physical, something sentient. Coils of a black more profound than ink dissolved in benthic seawater. No less than a total absence of light.

The Tube station was lost in the folds of black fog behind him. As Francis turned back towards what lay before him, he was suddenly greeted by a globe of pale light cast from a solitary lightbulb that hung down precariously from the ceiling. The vague shapes of Gothic vaulted walls were now visible, columns of obsidian shining. _Are we really still underneath London?_ Francis wondered.

Directly beneath the lightbulb's corpse-like corona, a battered armchair stood, as monochrome black as its surroundings. It contained the reclining figure of a young man, who sat horizontal across the seat, his feet perched on one of the arms.

As Francis drew quietly closer, he could pick out more precise features. The man was clad in a dark robe, secured by a golden sash strung tightly across his midriff. Locks of messy blond hair fell over thick eyebrows into piercing jade eyes, which were fixed intensely on the open copy of the _London Evening Standard_ that he held in his hands.

Francis recognised every part of this man as being ethereally beautiful, but none more so than the pair of feathered dark wings furled comfortably at his sides.

 _So this is an angel…_

"You've got to hate this time of year, haven't you?" the angel suddenly spoke. His voice was saturated with cynicism and bitterness.

He nonchalantly discarded his newspaper before he continued speaking. As the paper soared through the air, it inexplicably disintegrated into the surrounding darkness. The angel's peridot irises met the Frenchman's blue.

"Christmas, I mean," he elaborated, scoffing. "Those wankers up in Heaven are probably already at it. Banqueting, partying, the whole lot. It _is_ the world's most important birthday party, after all." The angel spat out each word as though they were disgusting morsels of food.

He turned his gaze away from Francis and leant back on his armchair. "And what am I doing here? Stuck in this dump. It had to be the lousiest part of an already lousy human city, didn't it?"

Francis stepped in further, utterly intrigued. "Do you miss Heaven, then?" he posed with a smile.

The angel scowled. "As much as I hate it here, I wouldn't go back there for anything. They're all a bunch of wankers, and my boss was the biggest wanker of them all. Believe me," he scoffed, sardonically chuckling, "he isn't the great omnibenevolent guy you've heard about."

"Ah, well, I was always ambivalent to these things," Francis admitted as he sat down on the arm of the armchair, next to the angel's head. "So, what was it you did to get exiled from Heaven?"

The angel shook his head. "I don't actually remember. It's been so long. But it was probably something incredibly stupid. They tend to get unbelievably tetchy about the smallest things."

"Oh, I can imagine." Francis could still recall his Catholic childhood; the days in which he gleefully abided by church rules. And for the sake of what? Having been unable to find the answer, he later gave up on religion entirely.

The angel sighed. "As a fallen I'm consigned to darkness. As light is the realm of Heaven's angels, I can't move out of the shadows. That's why I'm hiding underground, where natural light doesn't exist."

Francis peered down at him. "Do you find it lonely?"

"Lonely?!" the fallen angel seethed. In one aggressive motion, he leapt out of his reclining position and rounded on Francis, his wings unfurled threateningly. "What do you think I am, some lost puppy? No, I'm not _lonely_ , you sentimental twat. I'm just pissed off at the injustice of it all. I didn't let you in here for your _sympathy._ "

Francis smiled in a very irritating, knowing fashion. He could always tell when a person was trying to obscure their true feelings. "Why did you let me in, then?"

Something snapped in the angel's expression. "You're asking too many questions, human. I've half a mind to get you to leave –"

"Ohoho, and then go back to moping on your armchair?"

The angel's face darkened, and the air around him along with it. Suddenly a viscous coil of the surrounding inky blackness shot out and entwined itself around the Frenchman's neck, choking him. _"Get. Out,"_ the fallen intoned.

Francis's constricted trachea opened again, but only once he realised he was falling through infinity. His body slammed against something, but the darkness was so absolute he could not discern its orientation. After taking a moment to gather himself, Francis's eyes once again set upon the circle of illumination in the distance. The angel had his back to him, wings flapping irritably.

"Go on and leave me alone!" he hollered.

"I understand."

That gave the fallen pause. He did not turn around, but Francis could notice the change in his demeanour.

"I understand," Francis continued. "I get it. You're in a dilemma. You're in a situation where you have two options, neither of which you like… You don't want to risk showing _any_ weakness to a mortal. And yet you know it's your only choice. It's the only way you can communicate or relate to anyone now, seeing as you've been excommunicated from Heaven… _n'est-ce pas?_ "

Francis waited for the angel to lash back out at him. Instead he merely emitted a series of disgusted noises, interspersed with bitter words.

"Ugh. I can't believe it. Have I really fallen so low that a mere _human_ can say he relates to me? Shut up, wanker, and leave me alone. I won't ask again."

"Both you and I know you don't want that." Francis smiled his most genial smile.

The angel turned his head half-around so that one viridescent iris was visible in a face of shadows. "Why did you come here, anyway?" the voice was still bitter, but softened slightly by curiosity. "Are you not afraid of the dark?"

Francis chuckled. "Believe me, if I was afraid of the dark, I wouldn't know as much about love as I currently do."

"Hmph. So you're one of those lovestruck fools, then?"

"Ah, not just any lovestruck fool." Francis sauntered closer. "I am _the_ most lovestruck fool you'll ever come across."

"You speak that like it's a good thing," the angel muttered, grimacing.

"Oh," Francis murmured, drawing ever closer, "It's not only good, but _essential_ if one is to become as knowledgeable in that field as I." A triumphant chuckle escaped from his lips as he wrapped his arms suddenly around the angel's middle.

"H-hey!" the fallen squawked. "Get off me!"

Francis was still laughing even as his face was battered mercilessly by wings, filling his mouth with feathers. The angel turned indignantly back to him, brushing down the creases of his robe.

"I'll tell you why I came." The laughter did not leave Francis's voice entirely, but faded into something a little more sombre. "I've been trying to answer a question… that's been plaguing me for some time. How many kinds of love are there? Is there a type of love that can be described as the best, worst, strangest or most ordinary? In order to answer that, I take every opportunity I can to try out a _different_ kind of love. Something a little more unorthodox. Something… unearthly." He met the angel's gaze. "As soon as I saw that door, I thought… this kind of love, that is born underground, nurtured in darkness… and ultimately destined to bloom at nighttime, like a moonflower's spiral… It had the potential for intrigue that I just couldn't ignore."

He allowed the angel a few seconds to digest this before posing, "So, tell me. Why did you let me in?"

The fallen broke eye contact. "If I'm going to be honest… and seeing as I can't get rid of you…" He sighed, the darkness around him rippling. "If truth be told, I've also been thinking about what love _truly_ means. I mean, you would think I would know about love, being an angel and all that crap, right? In Heaven, there's a lot of talk about love, it's true, but… To me, Heaven's idea of love always seemed cold and bureaucratic. There's no room for personal opinion. It is how God says it is, nothing more, nothing less." He turned back, (slightly hesitantly, Francis noticed) to the Frenchman. "This… isn't actually the first time I've thought about doing this. Y'know, allowing someone to come into my domain. But you're the first who hasn't been totally bewildered by me…" He frowned suddenly, the gesture exacerbated by his abnormally thick eyebrows. "So… why is that, then? You weren't even surprised to see me… Have you met another angel before, by any chance?"

"You're the first," Francis admitted. "And why am I not surprised? Well, if there's one thing that I can always expect from love, it's the unexpected. It's a rule of thumb I've come to live my life by." He shrugged smilingly.

"Well, maybe that's true. You're certainly unexpected," he commented, before hurriedly adding, "That wasn't a compliment, you twat! So wipe that grin off your face!"

That only served to widen Francis's grin. "Ohoho," he softly chuckled, approaching the angel once again. This time, there was no backlash. "What's your name, then?"

The angel blinked, seemingly surprised at the simplicity of the question. "My name? Arthur. Sorry if you were expecting some biblical bullshit."

"Arthur the angel, mmm?" Francis mused. "Sounds like the title of a ridiculous children's Christmas film."

"You shut your mouth!" Arthur retorted. "I'm certain your name is equally embarrassing!"

"Francis Bonnefoy," the Frenchman introduced proudly.

Arthur snickered. "Bonnefoy, huh? I always knew the French had awful taste in surnames. Well, awful taste in anything really –"

"You take that back!" Francis countered. "I have a beautiful name!"

"Yeah, you just keep believing that, _Bunny boy_."

Francis's frown turned into a smirk rather suddenly. "So we've already established each other's embarrassing pet names, then? I suppose that only leaves one more thing until we're official."

Arthur's face was incredulous. "I'm sorry, what?"

In response, Francis suddenly jumped affectionately onto the angel, pulling him down so that they both collapsed into the armchair, Francis's arms secured around Arthur's back. The latter made no attempt to push the Frenchman off, though his face experienced a rapid cascade of exaggerated expressions. All the while he was blushing the most furious shade of pink.

Francis had to laugh. An angel? Blushing? It didn't seem possible, but it made him feel all the more smug that he was, most likely, the first human to witness this phenomenon. Though he was surprised at how extraordinarily _human_ the body beneath him felt. He could feel somatic warmth through the robes, hear the rapid thrum of an eternal heartbeat… was this really what an ethereal being formed of darkness felt like?

 _Hmm… If the central aesthetic of an angel is to be perfect…_ Francis mused wonderingly, drawing on the Catholic doctrines and biblical tales he learnt as a child. _Therefore, an angel can do no wrong. As a fallen, he's broken Heaven's rules, and so broken that aesthetic, and so as a result…_ The Frenchman smiled to himself. _Perhaps that means he's closer to a human than an angel?_

A deep sigh escaped Arthur and he looked away, refusing to meet Francis's expectant gaze. "Okay, I admit it, you twat. I'm scared." His blush was in equal parts embarrassment and arousal.

 _Scared…? Of what?_ But Francis realised almost immediately. "O-Oh," Francis mumbled, "I see…" He grinned. "I forgot that you were an angel. All those centuries of forced chastity… but of course." Francis lightly cupped Arthur's cheek, turning his gaze slowly towards his. "Love can be scary the first time around. But I know how to deal with virgins. Trust me."

Arthur looked about to respond with a derogatory statement denying just that, but Francis cut him off as their lips seamlessly merged. Arthur pressed back more vigorously than Francis had accounted for, causing the Frenchman to open his eyes in surprise.

Everything had dissolved into pitch darkness, everything but Arthur's irises, two glowing emerald flowers, luminous in a spiral of pigmentation. A chuckle vibrated through Francis's throat.

 _Blooming at nightfall… of course._

Francis had no fear. It was as he had said before: he wasn't afraid of the dark.

He wasn't afraid to tempt it, to tease it, to merge or become one with it. He wasn't afraid to fall in love with it.

Even so, he knew he had only scratched the surface.

Arthur had secrets he wasn't willing to let go of yet.

And Francis intended to be the first to find them out.

 _An angel's secrets,_ he contemplated, almost giddily. _It's like buried treasure._

As he kissed Arthur passionately in the darkness, a thought crossed his mind.

Although this was but one chapter, he knew all too well that their story would be destined to end somehow. That was the beauty of love: it was fragile, not eternal, and although it could last very much up until one's last dying breath; that did not change the fact that it still had to end.

But when the terminal point was eventually reached, when Francis left this place and did not come back, when Arthur spread his wings and flew into some indistinct point of tenebrosity… Perhaps this time around, it wouldn't truly matter.

For he knew that part of him would forever remain in the darkness.


End file.
